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$xhtml = array(
	'<{title}>' => 'Immanuel Kant',
	'<{subtitle}>' => 'Written in <span title="Introduction to Philosophy">PHIL 1402</span> by <a href="https://y.st./">Alex Yst</a>, finalised on 2018-07-04',
	'<{copyright year}>' => '2018',
	'takedown' => '2017-11-01',
	'<{body}>' => <<<END
<h2>Immanuel Kant</h2>
<p>
	Immanuel Kant was born in Königsberg, Prussia, where he was one of nine siblings.
	Only four, Immanuel included, survived to adulthood.
	His birth name was actually Emanuel, but after learning the Hebrew language, he decided to change his name to use the Hebrew spelling.
	He chose not to marry, instead fulfilling his social needs through a circle of friends.
	It is believed that Kant led a very disciplined and scheduled life though, to the point people would claim neighbours set their clocks according to his daily walks (Wikipedia, 2018).
</p>
<p>
	Though Kant was a very religious person, he refuted the nonsense arguments that &quot;proved&quot; theism (Wikipedia, 2018).
	While he was a believer, he also had the intelligence to recognise a bad argument, unlike many other devout people you&apos;d see today.
	Typically, the people who seem to believe in religion strongest are the same people that don&apos;t accept basic, provable facts and methods, but Kant shows us that even an intelligent and scientific mind can believe in religion.
	Most modern religions are not inherently incompatible with science, after all (aside from the variants saying the earth is much younger than science proves it likely is).
</p>
<h2>Kant&apos;s culture</h2>
<p>
	Kant was brought up in a strict Christian family that put major emphasis on religious devotion, as well as humility.
	Specifically, his family was Lutheran and practised piety.
	They believed in learning Latin and religious teachings, and not maths and science.
	They believed the Christian bible was meant to be interpreted literally (Wikipedia, 2018), as opposed to figuratively like some people interpret it.
	Kant&apos;s education was based in discipline, unlike a modern education usually is.
</p>
<h2>My interest</h2>
<p>
	My brief initial look into each of the philosophers on our list to choose from showed me that Kant believed that morality stems from reason.
	That is to say that there isn&apos;t some divine force that determines what is right and wrong, but that we, as people, decide what is right and wrong based on our own personal logic.
	This is something I&apos;ve strongly believed for a while, though many more-philosophically-inclined people seem to think I&apos;m wrong or even that my view makes no sense.
	It was nice to see that a well-respected philosopher had come to a similar conclusion as I had.
	Morality exists only because we say it does.
	It&apos;s a framework we use to judge the actions of ourself and others, but in the end, there&apos;s no true right or wrong in this world.
</p>
<p>
	After choosing him as my subject philosopher for the week though, I must say I was at first disappointed.
	He actually did seem to believe in an absolute good, and was quite a religious person.
	He did make one very important point though: we can&apos;t prove or disprove the existence of souls or the Christian god, Yahweh.
	This is something I firmly believe.
	While I don&apos;t believe in either (souls or Yahweh), I know too that there isn&apos;t a way to know for sure.
	Some gods can be disproved, while others can&apos;t.
	For example, Zeus is a physical being that lives on Mount Olympus.
	We&apos;ve entirely explored Mount Olympus now though, a feat the ancient Greeks weren&apos;t yet capable of, and there&apos;s no Zeus there.
	We&apos;ve disproved the existence of Zeus.
	Metaphysical beings beyond time and space though ...
	We can prove that the Christian bible is logically inconsistent (very inconsistent), and that a being exactly as described cannot and does not exist.
	However, many Christian&apos;s belief in Yahweh doesn&apos;t exactly match that described in the Christian bible, and many of their beliefs are actually within the realm of possibility.
	Such versions of Yahweh (as well as some other metaphysical gods from other religions) cannot be proved or disproved.
</p>
<h2>Belief in a god</h2>
<p>
	Kant&apos;s main metaphysical argument was that although there can never be proof that a god does or does not exist, people are perfectly justified in believing that one does exist.
	He recognised that after failure to prove something true, one may also fail to prove that same thing false.
	In such cases, we can&apos;t really know for sure what is true and false.
	We can argue and reason, and we can make attempts to figure it out, but some answers are in fact unknowable.
	His view was that in the absence of proof one way or the other, we should decide how to act based on which option is better for us to accept (Wikipedia, 2018).
</p>
<p>
	This philosophy wasn&apos;t limited to religion, either.
	One of his main examples was of perpetual peace.
	While perpetual peace would be an amazing thing for humankind, is it within human nature to be capable of creating and maintaining perpetual peace?
	The answer is unclear.
	Kant&apos;s solution to the problem was to act as if it was in fact a possibility and work toward it.
	I&apos;m by no means an optimist, but we can&apos;t succeed if we don&apos;t try.
	I agree with Kant on this; we should try our best to create and maintain a lasting peace.
</p>
<p>
	Back to theology, Kant believed that morality and happiness could not be intrinsically tied except under the control of a just ruler.
	In order for the good and righteous people to get their reward, he reasoned, there must be an afterlife.
	Otherwise, we can plainly see life is a random mess, and doing the right thing doesn&apos;t often end well.
	At least, it doesn&apos;t in this life.
	In this life, happiness is often achieved through greed and the subjugation of others.
	It&apos;s useful to tie happiness to morality, so it&apos;s useful to act as though there&apos;s a just god and an afterlife.
	That doesn&apos;t mean that there actually <strong>*are*</strong> these things, but it also doesn&apos;t mean that there isn&apos;t.
	It&apos;s useful to act as though our actions in this life will affect a future life, as it motivates people to be better versions of themselves than they otherwise would be.
</p>
<h2>Students of philosophy</h2>
<p>
	The message here is very clear: it&apos;s one that when we can&apos;t know something, we should act based on what can provide the better outcome.
	For example, in the case of perpetual peace, if we assume it&apos;s possible, we should be working toward it.
	That means establishing peace in the first place, then trying to perpetuate it as long as we can.
	If perpetual peace is impossible because the human race is so horrid that we&apos;ll never allow peace to take permanent hold, what have we lost by at least trying?
	But we have much to gain.
	Even if we can&apos;t actually make peace last forever, we&apos;ve established peace for a while, and that&apos;s better than it could have been.
	On the other hand, what happens if we assume everlasting peace is impossible?
	Well, we might not try as hard to establish and preserve peace.
	We would likely give in to conflict more readily, believing it to be inevitable.
	Even if conflict is in fact inevitable, giving into this inevitability means we allow conflict to happen much more often than it actually needs to occur.
	And what happens if we assume conflict is unavoidable and we&apos;re wrong?
	What if perpetual peace is really possible but we don&apos;t believe it?
	What happens is we throw away our shot at it because we don&apos;t even try.
	Why try knowing you&apos;ll fail, right?
	This important lesson is why students of philosophy should study Immanuel Kant.
</p>
<p>
	As for my own personal reaction, I&apos;ve got to say, I&apos;m impressed by this viewpoint, though I need more time to process it.
	In some ways, it aligns very well with my own.
	I often act, knowing I won&apos;t make the difference I feel is necessary, in the hopes that I&apos;m wrong and I actually will improve the world.
	I&apos;ve lost hope in humanity, and yet I still try to do my part.
	I guess the same goes for theism, too, but my view is reversed.
	I don&apos;t think a just and loving god would want to rule over us, or would set up the world to be the mess that it is.
	I guess I have to act as though there is no god, whether one or more actually exist or not, because if one or more gods exist, we are nothing but pawns to them.
	This much is clear.
	If a god or gods exist and have a plan for us, we are stripped of the vital freedom we need to be ourselves, and that&apos;s a very dark line of thought for me; one much darker than the endless abyss I assume awaits us all after death.
	And if there exists a god or gods that would rather ignore us than rule over us, from our perspective, there might as well be no gods.
	Either way, belief gets me nowhere.
	Usefulness isn&apos;t the cause of my disbelief, but disbelief is a much more useful option for me than belief.
</p>
<div class="APA_references">
	<h2>References:</h2>
	<p>
		Wikipedia. (2018, July 3). Immanuel Kant. Retrieved from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Kant"><code>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Kant</code></a>
	</p>
</div>
END
);
